Pulling a Weasley
by LilithBoadicea
Summary: Hufflepuff strikes back.


My mother's sister is, without a doubt, the most meddlesome, short-sighted and impetuous of busybodies. It surely comes as no surprise that she was sorted into Gryffindor. Yes, I had a bit of a breakdown in my fifth year. That such a thing was _common_, even _anticipated_, apparently went right over her head. I was hardly alone in that, O.W.L.s being what they are. Merlin's toenails, I can and should list the number of classmates who went temporarily 'round the bend towards the end of term! Ernie completely lost his head, and you don't see _his_ aunt flailing about as if family honour were at stake. Of course, Ernie's folks are all right proper Hufflepuffs and know better than to react as if every little thing were a dragon in forthwith need of slaying. Gryffindors... no sense of perspective, the lot of them.

Mind you, it's not that I don't love my aunt and appreciate her. She's a good woman, gives generously to charity, and was the very first to bless my Mum's marriage to a Muggle. The whole family calls her KatieDear (one word, see, they might not know to whom you are referring unless you say it just so) and for good reason. She really is a dear, dear woman; nevertheless, she is also a busybody and I think I've every right to be a bit indignant. The woman hexed me! Yes, I see you shaking your head in disbelief and I assure you that she most certainly did! Have you ever noticed how, when someone starts on about a thing being 'for your own good', it's really a thinly veiled excuse to cause you no end of trouble?

Well, I suppose there's no sense in dithering on about it. Since you simply _must_ hear the whole dreadful story, (and I've no idea why you must, it wasn't all _that _exciting, and certainly wasn't "bloody brilliant"- you do realise how close I came to being expelled) then I'll give it to you, just so long as we've got it sorted out right at the start that none of this was my idea. Duress of the highest order; I would have far rather been reading a good book than acting like a total hooligan.

Of course, the first was the worst. Have you ever heard the term 'paralysed with fear'? Yeah, well, it's a surprisingly accurate turn of phrase. I started that first one goodness only knows how many times- I just couldn't go through with it. I'll admit that I thought-hoped, rather- that Aunt KatieDear's hex would wear off in time and I wouldn't have to go through with it. But no, the hex grew progressively worse. It was me or them. I confess that the sight of Slytherin house turning into canaries at breakfast was rather invigorating. It only took a week or so for Madam Pomfrey to find the antidote. Let it be said that few things are more dangerous than a gross of Canary Creams in the hands of an excellent Herbology student with nothing to lose. Beware my mad Herbology skills! I can be glib about it now; now that I know I'm not going to get in trouble, that is. Everyone suspected the Gryffindors. Even if they hadn't, reason tells me (now) that I would have been far down the list of possible suspects.

I thought that first prank would be the end of it. Outrageous behaviour was the counter-curse for my aunt's ill-advised hex, and thus logic clearly led me to believe that I would be cured by doing something outrageous. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get off quite so easily. My sixth year was dotted with little incidences like this. I tried, oh believe me, I tried any way I could think of to break the hex. Anything but that. It refused to let me alone though, much like my aunt in that respect, and I was forced at regular intervals to skulking about, plotting grand mischiefs. The flamingos in the Ravenclaw common room, Snape's new hairstyle, Pansy Parkinson's knickers planted atop the Astronomy Tower and waving in the breeze. Remember the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw Quidditch match? The one where the Bludgers fired cream pies every time they were struck? Yes, that was me. Tricky little bit of Charm work that was, too. I was rather proud of the Bludger Incident.

But I digress.

I really believed I had the hex beaten with that last prank. It just doesn't get much better than cream pies flying about the Quidditch pitch. Aunt KatieDear's little gift was not properly convinced yet, though. As with all the other pranks, I spent a goodly amount of time thinking I was in the clear. Then, just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, the Out-Of-Her-Shell hex came back to haunt me. I would literally grow a shell if I didn't do something outrageous. It started around my waist; bit difficult to move, but nothing serious. Once it started to encroach up my neck, I would know that it was time to act. Before people started to talk. A sixth year with a shell is a bloody peculiar thing, you know. It went away immediately after pulling some preposterous stunt, but it was beginning to look as if it would take drastic measures indeed to effect a complete cure.

I was hampered by the fact that, after the Bludger Incident, people were no longer suspecting the Gryffindors. My one mistake, and it was awfully stupid of me. The two biggest Gryffindor troublemakers were _on the team_. If I had been thinking, I would have realised that playing a prank at a Gryffindor Quidditch match would raise suspicions. Up until that point, almost everyone assumed that there was simply not enough evidence to prove what they all "knew"; namely, that a Gryffindor was behind all the mayhem. Faced with the daunting task of the biggest prank of them all, I was now working without a net and out of ideas.

Bugger all. I was doomed.

My salvation came in the unlikely form of Sybil Trelawney, Crackpot Extraordinaire. She's the Divination professor too, but she's much better at the former. That's another story though. Pressing on. Ernie only ever took Divination because I wanted to, and whatever reason I had for originally wanting to is lost to obscurity. Most likely involved the assumption that I might learn something, but the point being that Ernie didn't like it, wasn't at all good at it, and Divination was our standard wank whenever he had nothing better to be peeved about. It must have been shortly after Easter hols when Professor Trelawney finally lost her temper with this most ungrateful of students. Poor Ernie was doing his best to interpret a dream wherein a girl with a yellow cape and mask snuck through the halls of Hogwarts at night (creepy, yes, I quite thought so myself). He wrote an essay involving sun motifs and potential marriage and motherhood and death and... oh, you get the gist, it was a jumbled mess. There went Professor Trelawney, right round the twist, smacking him up side the head with his rolled-up essay and screeching that, "The awesome gift is not a conglomerate of fifteen huge issues at random but many small, simple points adding up to one large whole... do you hear that, Mr. Macmillan? _One large whole!_" Smack, smack, smack.

An epiphany. Prophetic even, perhaps. I would go so far as to say the heavens opened and a bolt of lightning struck my head. All that was missing was my cry of, "Eureka!"

You, of all people, will understand that it took almost another month to properly prepare for such an undertaking. But then, Rome wasn't built in a day. End of term was coming alarmingly near and schoolmates began watching me for signs of the prior year's incipient hysterics on my part. What with my usual studies combined with these extra-curricular studies I, frankly, didn't have the time for hysterics even were I so inclined. Eventually all was in readiness. Three weeks later my courage caught up, and I at last dove into the prank sure to cure me. Thankfully it was not particularly difficult; tedious, yes, and it took me three full nights to set up, but none of it overly strenuous or difficult. Being out after curfew without getting caught was certainly the trickiest bit. The fourth night I slept. That morning, all hell broke loose.

It was all arranged to start on a Friday, the last school day of the week being the more relaxed. People aren't on their guard on a Friday. It started small. Just after breakfast a horde of Cornish pixies were let loose in the hallways. Prefects sent to round them up discovered that all the castle's curtains had been enchanted to capture and hold anyone who came close enough. Things steamrolled from there into mass chaos. Third floor toilets exploded. Several textbooks, when opened, had innocent-looking white bunnies jump out of them. Professor McGonagall found that no matter what she wrote on her chalkboard, the words re-arranged themselves to read things such as, "No, she isn't wearing anything under there. True Scots don't, you know." Every ceiling in the school was raining a fine mist of confetti and some mysterious scoundrel had provided Peeves with an alarmingly large quantity of ink-filled balloons.

Peeves has rather good aim, did you notice?

It was _havoc_, I tell you. Students yelling to be let out of the curtains, Peeves swooping and dive-bombing like the Red Baron, Professor McGonagall demonstrating the bounds of a rich and shockingly thorough vocabulary, Snape wreathed in various muck ejected by all the cauldrons in his Potions class, and students- ink covered or not- loving every second of it. Over it all, a soft rain of confetti and the splash of a white rabbit lost on the third floor.

No one ever confessed to the dastardly deeds, even when all students spent the majority of the weekend cleaning up the devastation wrought that Friday morning. You will be happy to hear that my shell never returned. All in all, though, I shall have to decline your generous offer of a job at your joke shop. Unlike the pair of you, I never wished to make a career out of acting the hooligan.

I would, however, love to know how the deuce you figured out it was me.

Warm regards,

H. Abbott.


End file.
